Note 1110 — Chapter V
Reading edition
May the rarity of British iron weapons be partly accounted for by supposing that during the greater part of the Late Celtic Period swords and spear-heads were still in many cases made of bronze? In the Homeric Age implements were of iron, but the weapons which the poet mentions were all of bronze, doubtless because the armourers had not yet learned to temper iron (Rev. arch., 4e sér., vii, 1906, pp. 284, 290-1, 294).